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Jean Todt has discussed the aftermath of the Baku collision between Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel - and the FIA's decision not to penalise Vettel severely for the incident - in a new interview with Sky Sports. The Frenchman acknowledges that not everyone is satisfied with the outcome of the situation, but also that such a reaction is surely inevitable as every incident will be dealt with differently by officials.
When asked if deliberate contact between two cars should result in instant disqualification for the guilty driver, Todt said: "Number one, each incident will be different. The FIA and stewards have been blamed that we did not leave enough free racing, which I can sympathise with. I heard 'don't do anything, let them deal on the track as they wish they want to deal'. Then, when it happens in a different way, it's 'the FIA and stewards should have done something.'
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"Let's face the situation how it has happened. Before the restart after the Safety Car, there was an unacceptable incident between Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton. Then it is up to the stewards to decide what should be done."
Todt added that despite his position as FIA president, he did not feel it was his place to intervene in the proceedings, although he was interested to see how they would develop: "I was very interested, I was watching the TV and I was curious to see what would happen. It was completely irrelevant for the president of the FIA watching from his home on TV to call the stewards and tell them what to do."
He then said that he viewed Vettel's punishment during the race to be fitting, meaning that he need not have interfered anyway: "The stewards decided that Sebastian Vettel should have a 10-second stop and go, which is quite a severe offence which means that it modified the result from being the winner to finishing fourth. His points went from 25 to 12 points so he lost 13 points because of that. It is up to the stewards to decide."
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Need to be consistent!